The Man Who Walked in Darkness (Miles Franco #2) (Miles Franco Urban Fantasy)

by Chris Strange

  “Shit,” I said. At least we still had the crystals. Such tiny little things. I picked up the jar and examined it. A new feeling was bubbling away inside me. Well, not a new feeling. An old feeling. The oldest of feelings. I pushed it down and tried to keep the darkness off my face.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Vivian said. She pulled out her cell phone. “I’ll call Detective Wade and get him down here with some uniforms.” She glanced at me. “I’d offer to take you to hospital if you weren’t so stubborn.”

  “Hey, I gave you a chance to back out of the deal, and you blew it.”

  “Will you be okay here until Wade arrives?”

  I forced a grin onto my face. “I think I can take care of a body and a handcuffed asshole. Besides, I’ve got Toto to look after me.” I patted the spider-dog. “Just don’t expect me to be nice to Wade when he shows.”

  She dialed and pressed the phone to her ear. I met Stretch’s cold eyes again and let the grin slip.

  “It’s me,” Vivian said into the phone. “I’m at an apartment on Poe Street. We’ve got….” Her voice dropped away, and I broke my staring contest with Stretch to see her frowning. “Where? Okay.”

  She hung up and turned back to me. “We’ve got a position on Bohr and the rest of the Collectivists that evaded us at AISOR. They ran to an abandoned apartment block in the Avenues. We’re ending this now.”

  “Just Bohr?” I tried and failed to get to my feet. “What about McCaffrey and her goons?”

  “Nothing yet. They’ll turn up.”

  “I’m coming with you,” I said.

  “Sure,” she said. “If you can stand.”

  “I can…” I tried again, but my legs were less stable than a house of cards. “I’ll catch up.”

  She turned to Desmond and Tania. “I’ll drop you both at the hospital on the way.”

  Desmond nodded, then clutched his head and made a face. Tania got up and knelt in front of me. Her hands still trembled slightly. She was a tough kid. She hadn’t even cried yet, but that would probably come later. It always did for me.

  “I’m glad you’re not dead,” she said.

  “I’m glad you didn’t accidentally turn me into a fruit salad.”

  She kissed me on the cheek, her lips scratching on my stubble, and stood. She and Vivian got on either side of Desmond and helped him to his feet.

  “You still got your phone?” Vivian asked me. “Call the station, tell them I told you to call, and let them know what happened.”

  I nodded. “Sure.”

  Toto followed them to the door, hooting quietly. Desmond gave me a half-hearted wave with his blood-stained hand, and Vivian nodded to me once more. I couldn’t interpret the look in her eyes. Then they were gone, and Toto trotted back over to me, nipping at Stretch as he passed.

  There was silence for a while. I couldn’t hear much traffic outside, or anyone walking past. No sirens. Gunshots were probably so common in this neighborhood it didn’t even warrant a call to the cops. I scratched Toto’s head, waiting for my strength to recover.

  “So,” Stretch said, breaking the silence. “Those are the crystals.”

  I picked up the jar and looked at them again. “Seems like it.”

  “We could sell them.”

  “We?”

  He rolled a little bit, like he was trying to get comfortable. “We could help each other. I have contacts. And you have the ability to get me out of here. I notice you haven’t called the cops yet.”

  I smiled a smile I didn’t feel. “I will. Soon.”

  “So, what are you waiting for?”

  I pocketed the jar, then put my back against the wall, gathered my legs beneath me, and pushed myself slowly upward. My tendons screamed, my bones quivered. I went down again. Stretch watched me, a smile playing at the corners of his lips. I set my jaw, gathered myself together, and tried again.

  It took me ten minutes, but I did it. I stood up. Toto provided moral support while I planted my hand against the wall, sweat pouring down my face.

  It was another five minutes before I could take a step without falling. It was like learning to walk again, except this time there was no one to catch me if I fell. But I did it.

  “Where are you going in such a hurry?” Stretch asked. I ignored him and staggered into the tiny bathroom, pulling the sliding door closed behind me as I went. I was glad to have the bastard out of my sight.

  The bathroom must’ve had the same interior decorator as the rest of the apartment. I stared at myself in the cracked mirror. It didn’t scare me to see what I looked like anymore. At least the greenish tinge was gone.

  I splashed water on my face and gripped the sides of the sink with both hands to take the weight off my legs. I supposed I should be happy about being alive. That seemed like the logical response. But the lump in my chest was still there, heavier than ever. How many people had died the same way I nearly had? I pictured Claudia lying in a hospital bed somewhere, going through that kind of pain. No one had saved her. I hadn’t saved her. For the millionth time I tried to remember what she’d said to me in that phone call, the last time I talked to her before she died. But the night was too hazy. I was too busy drowning myself in cheap booze to do a thing.

  I pulled the jar of crystals from my pocket, shooed a cockroach off the edge of the sink, and set the jar down in its place. I stared at the crystals. Reality-shapers, Aran called them. Bringing three worlds together, powered by my very own Chroma-laced blood. Giving life to your deepest, darkest desires.

  But that was the trick, wasn’t it? Because who really knows themselves? Six months ago I thought I knew exactly what kind of guy I was, what I would do and what I wouldn’t do. I had my code, my personal morals. And look how that turned out.

  Maybe McCaffrey and Bohr knew what they wanted. They were smarter than me. Or maybe they were just like everyone else, burying the darkest bits of their soul so deep even they’d forgotten what was there.

  I turned on the tap again and drank water from my cupped hands. I never took my eyes off the crystals. They called to me. It sounded just like the song Claudia and I had been playing.

  “Damn it,” I said to myself. I snatched the jar off the sink, unscrewed the lid, and tipped the crystals into my hand. They were warm, and squishier than I was expecting. I fished one out of the pile and held it up to the light between my thumb and forefinger. It seemed to quiver.

  I closed my hand around the rest of the crystals, closed my eyes, and concentrated. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do to make them work, but something told me I didn’t need to know.

  What did I want? What did I really want?

  Freedom. Love. Forgiveness. A long sleep in a clean bed. A shower. To be someone else. To have another chance. For everything to be all right.

  I listened to the energy pulsing through me, radiating from the crystals. It felt like the same pull I’d felt on Tartarus, but different. Less ethereal. More concrete. Visions floated behind my eyes. My knees went weak.

  My eyes snapped open. The feeling vanished. I was on the bathroom floor, my head against the toilet bowl, the crystals digging into my palm. My tail bone ached where I’d landed on it. I’d be lucky if it wasn’t cracked by now. I opened my hand one finger at a time and looked at the crystals sitting there, just the same as before.

  A single, clipped laugh bubbled out of my throat. Then another. My chest stung and my lungs burned, but no matter how much it hurt, I couldn’t stop laughing. I laughed until tears ran down my cheeks. I knew what I had to do now. I knew the game I had to play. And I’d play it to the end.

  Finally, the laughs subsided. I sat there on the cold tile floor for another few minutes, smiling and shaking my head. Then I clambered to my feet, poured the crystals back into the jar, screwed the top on, and went back into the main room.

  “What’s so funny?” Stretch was still on the floor, watching me.

  I shook my head, the smile still painted onto my face. “The world. Everything. You have
to laugh at it. You laugh at it or you go insane, right?”

  His eyes narrowed slightly, but he said nothing.

  I pocketed the crystals, wiped the smile off my face, and staggered forward until I was a foot from his head. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s talk about something else. I heard what Aran said to you. You knew each other, didn’t you? You both worked for Bohr.”

  “I work for myself.”

  My legs were already getting tired again, but I didn’t want to sink back to the ground. I walked behind Stretch, got the chair Aran’s brother had been sitting on, and dragged it back. I was sweating again by the time I sat down facing the enforcer, but I refused to show him how much it had hurt.

  “Aran said you were going to sell me to the highest bidder. You haven’t been the most loyal Collectivist, have you? Were you Bohr’s first, and then McCaffrey bought you? Or did McCaffrey order you to infiltrate the Collective?”

  He just looked at me with that infuriating smile. I dug my fingernails into my palms. The darkness simmered inside me.

  “I guess it doesn’t matter. The point is you were playing both sides. That was you watching me at the fundraiser where I met Zhi, wasn’t it? Hiding in the garden like a peeping Tom. Were you watching her or me?” I shrugged. “And of course when I followed her to her meeting with the mayor, you were there again. To ‘warn me’ this time.”

  “It worked,” he said. “Doc McCaffrey knew it would. You’re predictable, Franco. Too stubborn for your own good. But you still haven’t answered my question.”

  I rested my elbows on my knees and leaned forward, heels tapping on the ground. “You want me to help you out of here. So you can make us both rich.”

  “So rich you’ll be able to swim in it.”

  “Like Scrooge McDuck,” I said.

  “Who?”

  I licked my lips and smiled. “I don’t want money. I don’t want protection. And I don’t want to bargain with an oversized orangutan like you.” I bent down to look him in the eye. “I want McCaffrey.”

  He shook his head, chuckling. “You’re so predictable, Franco. So boring.”

  I laughed with him. “You like that, huh? You think that’s funny?” The laugh died in my throat. “Tell me how to get to her.”

  “Your friend is dead. She’s not coming back. Not even if you find McCaffrey.” He stretched his neck to the side until it clicked, then returned his gaze to me, the smiles gone. “And if you do find her, I’ll come for you. McCaffrey and Bohr are my paychecks. They can’t pay me if they’re in prison. If they go down, I’ll take my payment some other way.”

  I studied his eyes. They were dark brown, the color of mud. He watched me, unblinking.

  “You’re a big, tough man, aren’t you?” I was whispering, but I could tell he heard me. “Yeah. You’ve done things. I can tell. You’re probably used to scaring guys like me. I mean, look at me.” I shook my jacket by the lapels. “I’m not exactly Arnold Schwarzenegger, am I?”

  He said nothing, so I let go of my jacket and stood up. It was easier this time. I had a new kind of energy powering me.

  “I was ready to die a couple of hours ago,” I said. “It was inevitable. And then, all of a sudden, I wasn’t dying anymore. I don’t know how to feel about that. But I do know what I want. I’ve done things too. Do you know what I did last winter, when a friend of mine was in danger?” I dug my foot under Stretch and kicked him onto his back, then crouched so my face was directly over his. “I killed thirty-seven people. I set the air on fire and burned them alive. I crushed them, mutilated them. For most of them, they had to use dental records to identify the bodies. I bet I’ve killed more people in one bad day than you have in your entire career.”

  I turned away and went back to the chair, but I didn’t sit. My hands closed over the chair back.

  “Now my friend is dead. And she’s not the only one. It was you that killed the mayor, wasn’t it? She was always good to me. She gave me a second chance at life.” I turned around to face him, scraping the chair along the ground. “And then you came here. You threatened to kill Vivian. You worked over my best friend. You shot that poor Vei kid who’d helped me. So how far do you think I’ll go this time?”

  I tossed the chair down onto the ground and stomped on one of the legs. The wood snapped a few inches from where it connected to the seat. I picked up the leg, tested the weight of it in my hands.

  “Now, I know how these things usually go,” I said. “I’ve seen the movies. I ask you a question, you don’t answer, I get rough. We repeat that a few times until you tell me what I want to know. But I don’t have time for that. So let’s get the pleasantries out of the way first.”

  I swung the chair leg into his face. His head snapped to the side, a grunt escaping his lungs. Toto ran in circles, yipping. There was no guilt. This wasn’t me, but it was who I had to be right now.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said as I watched him grunting, his mouth half-open. “Did I dislocate your jaw? Hurts, doesn’t it? Let me fix that for you.”

  I slammed the chair leg into his chin. He let out a scream this time. Blood trickled from his chin.

  “Do you understand yet?” I shouted as I brought the chair leg down on his sternum in an overhand blow. My muscles were too scared to protest. “Do you see the kind of man I am?” I smashed the chair leg into his kneecap so hard the wood splintered.

  I stopped, panting, watching him writhe.

  “There’s just one question I have,” I said. “How do I get to McCaffrey?”

  He turned his head and spat blood on the floor. He seemed to be having trouble breathing. “I don’t know where she is.”

  I brought the chair leg down, driving the splinters into his thigh. An inch to the left and he wouldn’t be much of a man anymore. “Try again.”

  “Goddamn it,” he said through gritted teeth, his eyes squeezed shut. “I have her phone number.”

  I released the pressure, and his face slackened. “That’s a start. A cell phone number? She’ll have it with her?”

  He nodded, his eyes on the chair leg. “My phone is in my coat pocket. Her number’s under the name Abigail.”

  I fished the phone out of his pocket, getting a noseful of his body odor, and checked the contacts. I copied the number for Abigail into my phone.

  “If you’re lying…” I said.

  He spat more blood and nodded.

  “While I’m here,” I said, “you can tell me which of these numbers is Bohr’s. Just in case.”

  “The number under Jimmy.”

  “He does look like a Jimmy, doesn’t he?” I found the number and copied it down as well, then tossed Stretch’s phone onto the ground next to him. I realized my hands were shaking, so I shoved them back in my jacket pockets. “Thanks for your help.”

  “My pleasure.” He coughed a couple of times. Toto gnawed on his boots. “Since you’ve treated me so well, I’ll give you one more thing for free.”

  “Yeah?” My legs were getting wobbly again. I regretted smashing the chair. “Cough it up, then.”

  He rolled onto his side and worked his neck back and forth, cringing as he did so. “That apartment building in the Avenues your cop friends are going to, where they think they’ve got Bohr buttoned up?”

  Shit. “It’s a trap, isn’t it?”

  He smiled.

  “Goddamn it.” I flipped through my phone contacts, found Vivian’s number, and dialed. It rang three times. Four. My stomach knotted.

  Then she picked up, and I sighed with relief. “Detective Reed,” she said.

  “It’s me. Are you at the apartment building yet?”

  “I’m two minutes away. It took me a while to get to the hospital and drop the others off.” I could hear the sound of the car engine in the background.

  “Wait,” I said. “The tall asshole with the shotgun reckons it’s a trap. Can you raise Wade and the rest of your cop buddies and see if they’re alive?”

  I could practically hear her frowning th
rough the phone. “Detective Wade won’t have moved in yet without me there.”

  “Just call him, will you? And call me back.”

  I hung up and leaned against the wall, gripping the phone in my hand. It was a long wait.

  “What does she want?” I asked Stretch.

  “Who?”

  “McCaffrey. What does she want to do with the crystals?”

  He shrugged. “You’ll have to ask her.”

  “Right. You’re just the dumb muscle.”

  “I’ll come for you one day. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” I said. “But your grudge is with me. Only me. Remember what I do to people who hurt my friends.”

  We glared at each other beneath the flickering light. The seconds ticked away. Then my phone rang. I stood up straight and answered before the first ring ended.

  “I can’t reach Detective Wade,” Vivian said. “Or the sergeant who was supposed to lead the raid. Dispatch is still trying, but no one’s responding.”

  “Shit,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Stretch smile. I ignored him. “Can you see the apartment building from where you are?”

  “Yes. No movement. I can see the police vans and Wade’s car down the end of the street, but there’s no one there.”

  “All right. Get out of there before they get you too.”

  “I’m not stupid, Miles.”

  “I know.”

  There was a pause. I rubbed my forehead with my free hand.

  “I’m going to make some calls,” I said. “Do you think they’re still alive?”

  “There’s blood on the street. But not a lot.” She was holding it together well, but I could sense the strain in her voice. I didn’t care a lick about Wade, but the asshole was Vivian’s partner, which meant she cared about him.

  “Lay low for a while, and do whatever cop stuff you need to do.”

  “You’re not going to go off half-cocked again, are you?” she said.

  I consulted the anger boiling through me, the disgust. The urge to pick up the chair leg again and beat in Stretch’s head until his skull was nothing but powder.